Posted
by
msmash
on Friday April 20, 2018 @11:22AM
from the how-about-that dept.

With the help of AI, folks at a Chinese pharmaceutical company are breeding cockroaches by the billions every year, South China Morning Post reports. From a report: Their purpose: To make a "healing potion" that can cure respiratory, gastric and other diseases. The "potion," consumed by over 40 million people in China, is made by crushing the cockroaches once they reach a desired weight and size, according to the publication. There is a "slightly fishy smell" to the potion, which tastes "slightly sweet" and looks like tea, it added. Some insects are known to have potential health benefits. Besides China's cockroach potion, scientists are also exploring how milk-like protein crystals in roaches could be an excellent source of calories and nutrition. Chewing down on bugs like crickets and mealworms can also give us more protein, according to studies.

While under snake oil Territory in my book. I expects it has the same health befits as a protein shake, without the sugar. Giving some one who is ill (probably not eating much) a drink with protein and some other nutrients to help them get over the illness a little easier, and like many American Drugs, it has a strong smell which make you feel that it is working. Like eating hot peppers to clear your sinuses, or mint to make your teeth feel c

you might think it's snake oil, but there are reasons for the "American Drugs" examples you give.

- Regarding peppers:These will increase the secretion of the mucosae (i.e.: they'll cause your eye to produce more tear and will get your nose more runny. all this additional water you'll produce wil basically help washing your nose/sinuses)(most of the traditional cures for upper respiratory tract infections work the same way)several nasal spray work the same way but more directly (saline water to help wash out

If someone is allergic enough to have a reaction from breathing the air in spaces cockroaches have occupied, then he will definitely have a reaction from eating them.

I have a better solution for the real problem this propaganda hopes to fix: Maybe we should stop breeding so much. I'd rather have fewer people with a better quality of life than 10billion+ subsisting on insects.

The first part makes it sound like that traditional Chinese healing mysticism. Although insects are certainly a good source of protein and pretty efficient in converting plant matter into said proteins.
Anyway, I suppose it's better than killing Tigers and other endangered species for their bone(r)s because some old guys can't get a proper erection any more.

Racist prick. Granted, Detroit has its problems, but they were not caused by Black people, but by job loss, aided and abetted, deliberately, by unions as well as local, state and national governments. Like all U.S. cities there are large areas you should avoid if you can. The rest is just fine. The suburbs are for the most part just fine. The suburban and downtown job markets are surprisingly strong, and even the worst parts of town are gradually improving, many of them being repurposed as urban farms

Poverty also correlates to higher crime rates. I know plenty of majority white neighborhoods I won't step foot in because of the high crime rates. I certainly don't blame the sketchiness of those neighborhoods to the maybe 3 black people living in them.

China science so good.West science is steal and second place.China AI lead world with tracking seditious citizen.China feed citizen roach as directed by AI.Optimal feeding. Optimal breeding.China so good.

There is a lot of research into various aspects of cockroaches, such as their resistance to bacterial infection, but eating them probably isn't going to confer those sorts of benefits. The "potion" mentioned is Kangfu Xinye and gets a lot of press as snake oil, although people who swear by traditional Chinese medicine will deny that. The Journal of Emergency in Traditional Chinese Medicine [cnki.com.cn] has a lot of studies on it, I leave it to the reader to decide if these are valid studies or not.

Aversion to bugs in general is culture, not shared across all cultures or parts of the world. But domestic cockroaches are scavengers and carriers of gross diseases, and aversion to cockroaches specifically, while also not universal, seems far more widespread. I'll agree I'd way rather eat plants though.

The thing about snake oil is that it actually works if you believe it works.

No, it doesn't, any more than a perpetual motion machine works if you believe it works. You can convince yourself that it works. You can be very happy that you bought and congratulate yourself because "it works for you". But at the end of the day no amount of self delusion is going to change the fact that it objectively doesn't work.

I have often wondered why people on a Paleo diet don't eat more bugs. Insects of all kinds were a large part of the diet of true Paleos and even today, many cultures have bugs as part of their diet. They are high in protein and readily available.I'd like to see today's Paleos start eating this healthy diet rather than all of the industrially farmed meat.

But leaving that aside, rhino horn is chemically indistinguishable from nail clippings. And yet certain people believe it cures everything from cancer through impotence to being cleft asunder with a halberd.

Ancient remedies can work, sure, why not? But they don't necessarily have to.

Let me use one extreme example like tobacco. Native Americans have been burning and inhaling the smoke for a very long time; they didn't even use any filters as far as I know. So there shouldn't be much wrong with smoking it, right? Well, not quite right in this case. While tobacco might be all natural and has been consumed for a long long time, we still discovered that it isn't as healthy as we initially thought and furthermore

I've always wondered whether these "old wives tales" weren't some kind of massively parallelized genetic algorithm. Every person tries something random. These are then compared against their neighbors. Results that are successful or partially successful are reported to neighbors. Results that have no success are discarded.Some methods back then were using cobwebs and mildew to pack deep wounds.

A current day example would be whether applying honey to an open wound like a burn improves healing or not.

Since this is all fake, why can't they just make a chemical that smells and tastes like the cockroach potion, obviating the need to raise cockroaches? Or call it "new and improved" flavor and just make it taste like an existing candy.

However, you appear to be labeling anything designated as "homeopathic" as fraud which would be a mistake.

It's not a mistake. Homeopathy absolutely is fraud and provably has zero medicinal impact greater than placebo. We don't allow people to sell placebos and claim they are medicine so I don't understand why we allow homeopathy quacks to do the same.

The "science" of homeopathy is complete and utter bullshit, but ultimately it relies on herbal remedies and those can be efficacious as others have noted.

The only thing homeopathy relies upon is the gullibility of the person purchasing/using it. There is no measurable or therapeutic amount of any remedy of any kind (herbal or otherwise) in homeopathic "remedies". There is no mechanism of action that is based in

The problem is that the dosage prescribed by Homeopathy is too low to have any effect.

No the "dosage" in homeopathic "cures" is literally indistinguishable from zero. Worse they make some ludicrous claims about water having "memory" which you have to be a weapons grade moron to actually believe.

The core methodology of Homeopathy is to find something that will cause effects similar to what you want to cure or prevent

That is the cover story. The core methodology is to lie to people and convince them that they are buying something that is somehow more than overpriced bottled water.

Funny how "Western" medicine is also increasingly shown to not be reproducible.

Only to morons (like you!) who run away screaming with their fingers in their ears when they hear the word "evidence" and who want to believe that there is something more to eastern "medicine" than a good story. Or did you think all those diseases were cured by modern medicine with ginseng tea and acupuncture?

Funny how you just assumed you know what my stance on Chinese medicine is.

Apparently, according to you, people are simply not allowed to criticize Western medicine. Not even when it is Western science journals themsevles highlighting the dearth of reproducible clinical evidence for many Western medicines, like vitamin and mineral supplements, to cancer treatments, to diet that gets overturned every few years.

If you think Western medicine is flawless, I have a bridge in Florida to sell you. Dickhead.

The article indicates that it takes "humidity, temperature, food supply and consumption" into account and makes changes. Okay, sure... I guess that's a research study (do roaches grow faster in low/high humidity environments?), but I can't ima